Yesterday I passed Dog next to the side of the road, he was with 2 policemen. I was not worried as I have ridden many kilometers with Dog, and he has a collection of “Police Patches” which he displays in his Man-Cave, (with patches swapped with other police in the USA and from all over the world, he gives them a patch that says Houston Police Department and they give him one of theirs,) I would call it a Shoulder Lapel Patch, (the identification insignia and badge the cops wear on their uniforms.) This policeman did not have one spare, so ripped one off his own sleeve.
Soon after this photo we started getting to a section of the tar road that was littered with some seriously big Pot-Holes, and as my bike’s tires were still very flat (for riding the gravel road,) I decided to get Dog to stop let me use his compressor to inflate my tyres. Which I did, thinking we are now back on tar permanently and had finished with the gravel roads.
A lot of effort, but it was all for nothing, as we learnt last night that Route 40 will switch over to gravel road again, for over a 100km, on a notorious stretch of gravel that has been named The Bastard Road, (in Spanish.) There was some information about this road on the Internet and they warned that it starts with good gravel and then just gets worse and worse. They warned of lots of loose stones (the Marble effect,) and then of course they said the road is almost not ridable when it has rained a lot. I was indeed thankful it did not rain today !!!!!!!
We went out to a little restaurant and thought we needed to eat more Empanadas:
It is similar to a Meat Pie, but unlike a Pie, the pastry is not a flaky Puff Pastry but rather a Short Pastry, (sure 99% of you know this, or not???)
We found a great little hotel with comfortable beds and hot showers.
The gravel started very soon after we hit the road this morning, it started with real good gravel:
Peens (and some others,) like to then open the throttle and cruise at 130km per hours, which is never a good idea as the road surface changes very fast, usually the color is a little different as you approach, but then it can be very soft, or marbled, or have some “lurkers” embedded in the compacted sand, which you can’t avoid at 130km per hour, and then you hit the rock and you damage your rim. like what Peens did:
Once again Peens was lucky as the air in the tyre did not escape (tubeless tyres,) and he did not have an instant flat, (making the chances of falling much higher.)
I was enjoying the good gravel at my much lower speed of 90km per hour, but the road conditions slowly got worse and worse, and there were sections where the pebbles were so deep it felt like I was in soft sand, my nemesis, and then it got worse as Pie who was behind me caught up and felt he did not want to pass me, spraying me with stones and dust, and he says he did not want to leave me all lonely at the back, so he decided it was a good plan to ride next to me, facing the on-coming traffic, which thankfully was very few. And as Murphy always works in mysterious ways, I was not surprised to see that a car would suddenly appear around a corner, just at the same time as the hard gravel becomes soft deep marbles, resulting in me freezing and Pie accelerating and jumping the middelmannetjie to get in front of me, or, braking, then accelerating and then jumping to slot in behind me. So my ride continued and my stress levels just increased the further we went, me always having to look where Pie was instead of concentrating on staying in my lane. between the soft stone ridges.
I looked worse for wear when we all re-grouped a the start of the tar road:
The scenery slowly improved as we left the road behind us.
And then we reached a very small town and stopped for a coffee and a coke, and guess what what food the lady had:
Home Made, very good beef mince inside.
When we got to a fuel station I realized that there was still some of my toilet paper Ear-plug left in my one ear. Dr Pie did an examination and confirmed my diagnosis. So he chucked all his toiletries onto the ground and found a tweazer, and before long, with my ear pointing towards the sun, on his operating table, Dr. Pie surgically removed the toilet paper:
Then the road really got better with some bends and up-hills and down-hills, with the mountains in the back ground, with lakes and rivers all turquoise blue with melted ice from the mountains.
And just like that we were in El Calafate, a small tourist town, similar vibe to a Ski Resort, with lots of little restaurants and bars and shops, and tour operators and Back Packers galore.
Our faces will be close again tonight, but look how nice they folded our towels, real “5” Star ne !!!!
Note below how close we will be to Antarctica on the next Leg when we turn around:
Today my bike DadAss clicked over to 170 000km, she has been good to me, lots of kilometers and apart from when I lost the key and had some real drama and had to have a new ignition fitted, she has not let me down. And you might remember that I blamed the rest of the group for throwing away my spare key (and my bikes Registration Papers,) when we were locking up the bikes. I had to pay the Houston Licensing Department for a duplicate “Title” as they call it. But a few Legs later, my lovely wife was going through our Linen Room at home and there she found my stolen file with bikes Title and my Spare Keys.
We plan to go to visit the National Glacier Park on a tour, do some trekking on a Glacier, sail up to another Glacier, and there is also another Board Walk walk at another glacier we want to see. But 1st we need to sort out the storage, wash the bikes, do our laundry, and then do the Glacier Tours on Tuesday, some guys flies back on Wednesday and Pie and I on Thursday morning.
Dad moet maar namens my ‘n ekstra empanada eet!